In the story, a Georgia family, led by a tyrannical grandmother, are on a vacation road trip when an accident that strands their car leaves them face to face with a recently escaped criminal, the Misfit. O'Connor read the story, in her wonderful Georgia drawl, to an appreciative audience at Vanderbilt University, which laughs early and often, getting the local humor in lines like these:

"The children have been to Florida before," the old lady said. "You all ought to take them somewhere else for a change so they would see different parts of the world and be broad. They never have been to east Tennessee."

This story builds toward a climactic encounter between the grandma and the Misfit; this being a Flannery O'Connor story, Jesus is mentioned, too.